Juniperus virginiana L. var. virginiana, eastern red cedar. Small tree, evergreen, scale–leaved, sometimes spinescent (on vigorous whip shoots), most leaves on relatively short, ascending to spreading lateral branches, usually with 1 trunk, highly branched and shedding senescent minor shoots, canopy ± conic, in range to 8 m tall; dioecious; shoots with scalelike leaves in 4 vertical, closely appressed, overlapping rows (orthotropic), foliage shoots ± 4–sided and mostly ca. 1 mm diameter, strongly aromatic when crushed having ducts filled with resin.
Stems on young growth flexible, hidden by leaf bases; bark of old stem peeling in thin strips (exfoliating), red–brown.
Leaves opposite decussate (whorled sometimes on thicker whip shoots), simple and sessile, without stipules; spinescent leaves on primary shoots having the longest internodes, acuminate–triangular and awl–shaped, 2.5—8.5 × 1.5 mm, with hard point at tip, on typical shoots acute–triangular ± 1 × 1 mm (typical foliage), dark green often somewhat glossy, decurrent base on stem, minutely toothed on margin, with pit of resin gland in center at base.
Pollen cone spikelike, terminal on scattered, newly formed winter shoots, oblong to ellipsoid, 3.4—4.5(—5) × 1.8—2.2 mm, (when releasing pollen), of pollen–bearing, opposite decussate microsporophylls; microsporophylls stalked (peltate) with a broadly ovate (roundish) and cupped top (mushroomlike), surface to 1.5 × 1.5 mm, yellowish ochre and orangish aging red to purplish, minutely fringed on scabrous margins (inrolled before releasing pollen), ± obtuse at tip, with 2—6 pollen sacs on under surface of each microsporophylls but only on lower half of surface, sacs pale yellow; pollen pale yellow.
Seed cone terminal on short lateral shoot on new growth having to 10 pairs of opposite decussate, green, scalelike leaves; at pollination young cone inconspicuous, of to 4 fused, fleshy cone scales (scale–bract complex), opposite to alternate, each initially pink and glaucous with 2 visible chimneylike projections (exposed micropyles of ovules) along edge of fertile scale; mature seed cone (1–year) berrylike, 1—2(—3)–seeded often with 1 seed distinctly larger, ovoid with 1 flat face or almond–shaped (3–sided) to ovoid–subspheroid, 4.5—5 × 4—4.5 mm, glaucous blue–black often drying waxy and whitish; maturing in same year and abscising with terminal portion of shoot with several pairs of leaves.
Seed ± hemiovoid to angular ovoid, (2—)2.5—4 × 2.5—3 × 1.7 mm, brown and resin–coated.
A. C. Gibson